


ain't licked yet

by garden of succulents (staranise)



Series: ain't licked yet [4]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Crip Humour, Disability, Gen, M/M, Major Character Injury, Social Media, Twitter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-28 15:19:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7646362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staranise/pseuds/garden%20of%20succulents
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A new tweet pops up.</p><blockquote>
  <p>@cutestanimalpixx<br/>Me today: OK which crutch comes with a coffee holder<br/>Store dude: Uhhh I don’t think that’s an option<br/>Me: THIS IS MANHATTAN MY MAN DON’T TELL ME CRIPPLES DON’T DRINK STARBUCKS<br/>19:01</p>
</blockquote>Bitty laughs, and feels guilty for laughing.
            </blockquote>





	ain't licked yet

**Author's Note:**

> _Ain't Licked Yet_ is a series being written irregularly and out-of-order, about Kent Parson's career-ending injury and what happened after.
> 
> Taiya Sift is the fandom Taylor Swift knock-off invented by diamoric-lardo. She's like Taylor Swift, but entirely fictional, [and has been friends with Kent for years](http://des-zimbits.tumblr.com/post/146095983106/holsters-eyeglasses-pop-artist-taya-sift).

The only thing that makes Bitty look twice at the @cutestanimalpixx Twitter account when he gets the notification that they’ve followed him is that Taylor Swift follows _them_.  He’s not _totally_  susceptible to peer pressure but some people just… know their social media stuff, okay?  So he takes a gamble, follows the locked account back, and gets on with his day.

That evening they’ve approved his follow request and he shrugs, what the hell, and settles in to the usual chaos of trying to sort an active Twitter account into some kind of comprehensible narrative.  The mentions are absolutely lost on him, since most of them are with other locked accounts, but he can pick threads out of the main body of the account, like yesterday:

> @cutestanimalpixx   
> HCA Maria is off tonight. Say hello to HCA LUCA  
> 20:19 

> @cutestanimalpixx   
> It’s like having a new babysitter.  
> Me: Maria lets us order pizza  
> Sis: Maria lets us stay up after 10  
> Me: Maria lets us watch PG-13 movies  
> 20:24 

> @cutestanimalpixx   
> HCA Luca: Hey man that Tweeting looks really fatiguing. I could tweet for you  
> Me: DO I LOOK LIKE I WAS BORN YESTERDAY  
> HCA Luca: :-| :-( :'-(  
> 20:35 

> @cutestanimalpixx   
> HCA Luca is watching Game of Thrones with us B-)  
> 20:47 

On a hunch he presses ctrl+F, types in “HCA” and gets it to search from the bottom up, and pretty soon he has the acronym unraveled in a tweet from a week and a half before.

> @cutestanimalpixx   
> If I have to interview homecare aides all day i should get one of those big hooks they use for auditions on buggs bunny  
> 14:55
> 
> @cutestanimalpixx   
> Mom: Do you like hockey  
> HCA: Why yes, I–  
> Me: NEXT  
> 14:57 

Bitty narrows his eyes, scrolls up a bit, clicks on a picture to enlarge it.  Two bags on a neat, tidy bed in a room with window curtains and a potted fern hanging from the ceiling; the bed has rails and wheels.  The floor is speckled linoleum.  One bag is a squareish duffel; the other is a soft-sided cat carrier with something orange inside.   @cutestanimalpixx has captioned it, “BLOWING THIS POPSICLE STAND :D :P #RehabLyfe #SoLongSuckers”

He hardly has to scroll at all before he finds a good picture of the cat, a majestic marmalade longhair with a highly distinctive little ginger dot on its white snout.  It’s Kit Purrson.

“Hi, Kent,” he whispers.

A new tweet pops up.

> @cutestanimalpixx   
> Me today: OK which crutch comes with a coffee holder  
> Store dude: Uhhh I don’t think that’s an option  
> Me: THIS IS MANHATTAN MY MAN DON’T TELL ME CRIPPLES DON’T DRINK STARBUCKS  
> 19:01

Bitty laughs, and feels guilty for laughing.  He shouldn’t laugh; it’s awful.  He covers his eyes and his first instinct is to tell Jack.  That’s his first instinct for a lot of things but also Jack would just–Jack would _get_  it, would get why he was laughing and feeling awful about Kent facing heartbreak with insouciant panache.  It was just so–he didn’t know why he was even surprised.

He doesn’t even know what to say.  But on second thought, he goes through and favorites all the cat pictures.


End file.
